In today's program, Exploratorium scientists Paul Doherty and Karen Kalumuck will look at examples of life in extreme environments on Earth. As Mars is an extreme environment, the question remains-could it have supported any form of microbial life?

Why is water, or evidence of water, so important to the Mars missions?
Join Exploratorium scientists Ron Hipschman and Karen Kalumuck as they examine water as one of the building blocks for life and what previous Mars missions have discovered about water on the red planet.

The Curiosity rover has an incredible tool mounted on the mast, called the "ChemCam",which is a rock-zapping laser and telescope! This laser can hit rock or soil targets up to about 23 ft (or 7 meters) away. In today's show, Ron and Paul will share details about this amazing suite of tools!

In today's webcast, Exploratorium hosts Ron Hipschman and Robyn Higdon will look at the tools and technology on the robotic arm of the Mars rover, Curiosity. What are some of the scientific instruments and capabilities of NASA's newest rover on Mars?

Join us today for a very special Mars webcast! We will have our staff scientists talking about new images from Mars, and the cameras that take those pictures. We also have two special musical guests joining us; Thomas Dolby will sing in the show, and Reggie Watts will sing us out!

Take to the skies on board the zeppelin Eureka with pilot Andrea Deyling of Airship Ventures and get a crash-free course in lighter-than-air flight: What’s the difference between an airship, a blimp, and a zeppelin? How do they stay aloft? How high and how fast can they fly?
Airship Ventures operates the only commercial passenger airship operation in the United States. To find out more go to www.airshipventures.com.

With the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, history is made again. Photos and data are already coming back from the rover, and we are excited to share them with you. Join Exploratorium scientists as they interpret the information received thus far from the new Mars mission!

Webcasts made possible through the generosity of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Jim Clark Endowment for Internet Education, the McBean Family Foundation.

Bandwidth and infrastructure support for connectivity to the California Research and Education Network and to other Internet2-connected networks provided by the Corporation for Educational Networks Initiatives in California (CENIC).